


Going Out With A Bang

by MarcoFro5



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Explosions, F/M, Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcoFro5/pseuds/MarcoFro5
Summary: Bakugo finds a like-minded individual in an unlikely place. Together, they could either take U.A. by storm or turn it to ash.
Comments: 28
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

Bakugo hated his hesitation more than what he was about to do. If you did something, you should give it everything. Plus ultra, or whatever those bastards shouted to convince themselves of something so obvious. He had never needed something so basic drilled into him. 

A lion wasn’t taught it was a lion. It simply was one. This wasn’t asking for help, he convinced himself. No, this was just another step in getting stronger. If anything, this was going to make him need less and less help in the future. Whoever was on the other side of this door would be bowing down at the chance to work with him. It was in their literal damn name that they were subservient to heroes.

With that final push, Bakugo opened the door to Class 1-H.

“Alright, you support bastards,” he yelled. “Which one of you is the best?!”

Even though books were on the desks and bags slung over chairs, the room was devoid of people. Or almost devoid of people.

“They’re at the workshop, dumbass,” a voice hissed from a corner of the room.

He turned and saw a girl laying down on a counter in the back of the room. She was on her back, feet propped up against the wall and straight, black hair hanging off the other end of the counter. Her eyes were glued to the ceiling, not even looking his way. Bakugo’s blood boiled, sweat releasing from his pores.

“What did you say, ink head?!”

She pushed her feet against the wall, body shifting so that now her whole head hung off the edge. Upside-down, she stared at him with weird blue eyes and a smirk that pissed him off.

“It’s Wednesday,” she said. “The support classes all go to the workshop on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after homeroom. It’s written right on the front of the door, or is reading not a requirement for the braindead hero courses?”

The sweat was flowing now and he spread his fingers apart so it could cover more surface area. He was going to blast her to smithereens and then blast those smithereens until they were even smaller smithereens.

“It wasn’t on the door, keep lying and I’ll have to treat you like a villain,” he said, anger adding an edge to his grin.

She gave an exaggerated sigh, eyes swinging like a pendulum as she rolled them.

“There’s a whole ass calendar on the front of the door,” she said. “Or were too preoccupied trying to come up with something cool to say when you walked in?”

“There wasn’t anything there!” he barked back

“There is!”

“There isn’t!”

“Check it then, if you don’t believe me,” she said. 

He was reaching a boiling point and that only made her smirk grow wider. Checking would be admitting doubt and that wasn’t an option, even if it would shut her up. But storming out would let her feel satisfied and that felt like it wasn’t an option either. 

She was smarter than she looked, which wasn’t saying much because she looked like a total idiot with the weird adjustments made to her school uniform with thighs and stomach exposed. She’d regret that when she was on fire.

He stalked across the classroom, light flickering in his palms as he warmed up his quirk. She didn’t react in the slightest as he got right in front of her. He got a better look at her eyes as they looked up at him, still unbothered. They were a pale blue, but the black iris inside broke its circular shape, splaying out in different directions like a starburst.

It caught him off guard for a moment, and she capitalized on that hesitation by raising an eyebrow. He raised his hand up so that it was level with her head, close enough that he could touch her face if he extended his fingers.

“You talk a lot for a support brat,” he said, looking down at her. “Let’s see if you can back it up. Because at the end of the day, you support bastards are all beneath me.”

He sparked the sweat in his palms, intending to make his hands so bright that it blinded her stupid eyes for days or even weeks. She opened her mouth to speak but begging wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

“You smell good,” she said, nostrils flaring.

“Wh-what?” he sputtered, thrown off. The explosion in his hand stopped, light flickering out.

She grabbed his hand and pulled it closer to her face and he pulled out of her grip.

“Yeah, you smell really good,” she said.

“Stop saying that, you damn weirdo.”

With the hand she used to grab him, the girl put her finger in her mouth. She kept it there for a few seconds before pulling it out with a popping sound.

Her eyes came to life, the burst irises spinning as she gave him a once over.

“Nitroglycerin,” she said. “You may be interesting after all. What’s your name?”

“As if I would tell you, ink head,” he said. 

“I haven’t seen you around before so you must be one of the new first-years. Barging in here like you own the place when you haven’t even gotten your feet wet. It’s early in the semester so you must be after some gear for your class. Maybe we can help each other.”

He considered it and immediately dismissed it. This wasn’t some partnership, this was a hero and a support. A one-way street.

“I don’t help anyone,” he said, raising his hand to fire.

In one fluid motion she kicked off of the wall and did a backflip, going into a handstand with legs flying through the air. Bakugo cancelled the explosion again, averting his gaze until she was standing upright. After adjusting her skirt, she tucked straight hair behind each ear. 

“I don’t either,” she said. “So how about a different proposal? We help ourselves.”

Bakugo crossed his arms. 

“You get what you want,” she continued. “I get what I want.”

“This isn’t a scratch your back, I scratch yours thing,” he stated. Not a question, non-negotiable. He didn’t do favors

“Not at all” she said, licking her lips and stepping closer to him. “We’re just getting exactly what we want.”

She stuck out her hand and he noticed a tattoo woven around her wrist like a bracelet. On the underside was a bomb with rope that circled around the wrist to reveal a lit fuse. Definitely not U.A. approved, definitely badass. He wiped his hands against his shorts and then shook her hand.

“Katsuki Bakugo,” he said. 

She laughed and immediately he sent an explosion through his hand while he held hers, not enough to set it on fire but enough to make her yank it away and turn her laughing into cursing.

“What the hell, I thought we were cool,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“Is my name funny to you or something?” he said. “Was this whole thing just a set up so you could get a laugh in?”

She rolled her eyes and Bakugo could see the starburst irises spinning as she did so.

“Relax, it’s just funny. I’m Kazuko Bakuda.”

Bakugo couldn’t think of anything less funny.

“Stop screwing with me,” he said.

“First off, no. Second off, that’s my name dumbass,” she said. “Let me guess, your mommy told you that you were so special and no one else could have a name anything like it.”

“Shut the hell up, you support bastard.”

Who did this extra think she was walking around with some knockoff version of my name? He expected his anger to simmer longer, but it faded as she cackled. Bakugo didn’t believe in destiny or any other stupid nonsens the losers who couldn’t crack it believed in. He believed in himself, through and through. His gut was stronger than any sign from the universe and his gut was telling him there was a reason he ran into this ink-headed girl with a bomb tattoos and a nose like a bloodhound.

“Are you the best?

“Huh?” she said, not hearing him over her own damn laughter.

He hated repeating himself.

“Are you the best in the support course?”

She gave him a grin that Bakugo had only seen in the mirror. It curled from ear to ear and her eyes went wild. From that look alone, Bakugo got the answer he was seeking without her saying a word. Bakuda got close to him, grabbing his collar and pulling him close enough that a knife wouldn’t be able to fit between their eyes.

“I’m the best there ever will be,” she said. “Best support, best student, best hero. I’m the whole package.”

“You’re not,” he said, matching her intensity and pushing his head so his forehead pushed against hers. “Because I am.”

“Only one way to find out,” she said, pushing back.

“Let’s help ourselves,” he said. 

They battled like that for what had to be minutes, heads pushed against one another and neither budging.

“Ahem!”

Without breaking the deadlock, the two looked over to the front door and down to where Power Loader stood with his arms crossed. At the same time, they broke apart.

“Bakuda, when I said you were banned from the Development Studio and being punished, that wasn’t an excuse to invite your boyfriend to the classroom.”

“I am NOT her boyfriend,” Bakugo yelled at the same time Bakuda denied it.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” they both said to each other.

“Young man, I believe the rest of your class is at the Development Studio and working on their costumes. You don’t want to fall behind.”

Bakugo looked at Bakuda, she looked like she was going to kill him if he went off and got help from someone else. While Power Loader was at a cabinet trying to wrangle large spools of fabric, she headed to a desk and grabbed a piece of paper, scribbling something down. She folded it, pressed it together with her fingertips and handed it over to him. He stuffed it in his pocket before heading to the door. 

They shared a smirk before he exited to the hallway. He pulled out the paper and it felt warm in his hands.

Ground Gamma. 5 p.m. Be there, dumbass. -Bakuda

Moments later, the paper exploded into tiny shreds, surprising him. Thankfully, no one saw. She was crazy, but that gut feeling he had told him that she was his best option for what he needed.

Before leaving, Bakugo made sure she wasn’t watching him from through a window. With the coast clear, he looked at the front door to class 1-H.


	2. Chapter 2

Bakuda hated waiting. Like most other parts of her inner workings, her internal clock was leagues above others. Every second was an audible click in her head, reminding her that the hot-headed first year was late.

Somehow that was more egregious of a crime than when he threatened to kill her earlier today. Her time was the most valuable resource on the planet. To waste it wouldn’t just be a middle finger to her, it would be one to all the lives she was going to save over the years. Bakuda fell in step with the ticking in her head as she paced around Ground Gamma, sneakers tapping against steel.

Power Loader had given her additional videos to watch about the health and safety precautions required in the Development Studio and the sooner she could memorize the contents and regurgitate it out on the inevitable quiz, the sooner she could actually get to work on stuff that mattered. You couldn’t make world-changing omelettes without breaking a dozen eggs, but Power Loader and the rest of U.A. seemed really concerned about eggshells.

Bakuda snorted, filing that line in the back of her mind for the next time she was reprimanded. Which would probably be soon if she was caught sneaking out here. She promptly dismissed the thought. No, if anyone was going to get caught it would be that loud idiot and his not so repressed anger issues. 

Still, this was well worth the risk if his quirk worked like she thought it did. He would have to be managed, taught, and tamed so that he could at least show up on time for their meetings.

“Stop counting eggs,” she muttered to herself.

It was one of her few, if only, bad habits. No, it was a bad habit she hadn’t figured out how to make the most of yet. But for now, thinking too far ahead could cost her more than ten minutes of free time. This was just one meeting, a sales pitch on his part for her to see if he was worth her time and effort. Thinking forward to scheduled appointments alone together was a recipe for disaster when her attention needed to be on the here and now.

As if on cue, wind whipped between buildings in the alley she was holed up in. Goosebumps raced across her legs and midriff from the cool air, but with the wind came the delicious scent of toffees and burnt flesh. Bakuda wiped her uniform to make sure there weren’t any leftover crumbs from her post-school snack before he rounded the corner and saw her. A professional courtesy for a professional meeting. Nothing strange whatsoever about wanting to look presentable, it would help manipulate him into working under her if she looked the part.

What was strange though was the way her heart wouldn’t shut the hell up, beating much quicker than the ticking in her head. Bakuda wasn’t the type to get jitters, yet she couldn’t think of another way to describe this nervousness. Precisely 27 seconds into checking her heart rate, she saw him and the nervousness instantly disappeared.

It was replaced with unbridled irritation. He walked with his hands shoved into his pockets and looked pissed off. Just who the hell did he think he was showing up 10 minutes late and looking that upset?

“You’re late,” Bakuda shouted down the alley, voice barely heard over the wind.

“Go to hell,” he snapped back.

“What’s your problem?” she asked. “Missing a nap or something?”

She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her right foot, making him walk the whole distance to her. He stopped halfway, not taking the bait. It annoyed the hell out of her but she found herself smiling from him not playing along. Not as stupid as he looks, and boy did he look stupid. M

“Your directions suck ass,” he said, standing his ground.

“Or maybe you just suck at following them.”

“There was nothing to follow, ink head! Your note blew up right after I read it.”

His reading speed must be lower than she thought if the note blew up before he had time to memorize it, but she bit her tongue. Not for the sake of his feelings, if he even had those. She just doubted he would even understand the jab if she were to make it. Bakuda would have to adjust her quirk around his dumbassery in the future.

An explosion tore her from her plans and she waited for the smoke to clear before yawning to make sure he saw her do it. 

“I’m talking to you, support bastard! I’m here, so stop wasting my time.”

It took everything in her power not to run over there and hit him. The steel walls and floor around him were all scorched, smoke still rising. Bakuda took a deep breath to center herself, that odor of burnt sugar reminding her of what she stood to gain. 

“I get it, your mom didn’t give you enough attention growing up,” she said. “But there’s no need to throw a tantrum and risk someone knowing we’re out here.”

She compromised and walked out to where he wanted to meet halfway. Thankfully, he kept his trap shut instead of barking back. Maybe she would be able to tame him after all. Bakuda got a better look at him as she approached and couldn’t help comparing him to some rabid dog. All bite and all bark, she joked to herself.

“Tarp off,” she said.

“Huh?”

She sighed. What was the point of learning cool lingo when no one else bothered to learn it?

“Your shirt, dumbass. Take it off.”

“Go die,” he said, probably meaning it.

“As if you actually care about me seeing,” she said. “Stop being defiant just for the sake of being defiant. If I’m going to outfit you in gear, then I need to know what I’m working with.”

Bakugo stared her down and she cocked an eyebrow to break the stalemate. He shedded his jacket and threw it at her with some force and she caught it, which only seemed to piss him off further. There weren’t that many buttons for him to undo considering he already had the top ones undone, but he still struggled with them without ripping them apart in fury. For a supposed hero, he dressed like a slob, pants sagging and clothes wrinkled. At least the alterations she made to her uniform were badass, although a bit chilly.

“Do you need me to come over there and undo them for you,” she said, draping his jacket over her shoulder.

“Shut up, ink head.”

“You know my name, try using it, Bakugo.”

“Your name is a disgusting knock-off,” he said. 

He punctuated his statement by finally figuring out how shirts worked and taking it off. Bakuda loved what she saw and couldn’t keep the grin from her face like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. 

“How long did it take?”

“I’ve worked out every morning for the past-”

“Not the muscles moron, the sweat!”

He looked dumbfounded, which fit considering he was too stupid to grasp what she meant. Every crease and groove on his body was slick with the nitroglycerin-like substance. Her mind spun at the possibilities as she got close and ran a finger from the top of his abs to the bottom, tracing the groove.

“Did you run here? Or use any blasts that would explain why you’re so sweaty? Wait, do the blasts use this up? You just exploded seconds ago so maybe exertion actually creates more. If that’s the case then you would actually be creating more than-”

He slapped her hand away before she could investigate further.

“If you have a question, ask it you damn nerd.”

Absentmindedly, she wrung the hand he smacked, her eyes still glued to his torso.

“Sorry, this is just really interesting.”

She nearly missed him looking away after she said it. 

“Just get to the point, ink head.”

“How long does it take for you to make enough sweat for a blast like you just did?”

“As long as anyone,” he said, not helping.

She gave him an annoyed look and he gave her an angrier one.

“What do you want from me? I don’t produce it any faster than you do,” he said.

“I don’t sweat.”

“Stop lying and start making me weapons,” he said. “My sweat is explosive and I ignite it, it’s not complicated.”

“Can you show me?”

There was nothing but bloodthirst in his eyes as he rose both hands toward her. Bakuda rolled her eyes as he fired, wrists level with her ears. There was a rush of heat and she didn’t break a sweat as the explosion tore past her and through the alley.

To be fair, she walked right into that. She waited for her ears to stop ringing and when they didn’t, she figured she should at least get a cool line in to wipe the smug expression off his stupid face. 

“Is that it?,” she said, voice probably a little louder than the unbothered tone she was after. 

He aimed again and she grabbed his wrist.

“This is me supporting. Can you only do big blasts like that or do you have some variety?”

“I can think of about a hundred different ways I can use my quirk to kill you,” he said.

“And I don’t doubt that, but are all of those ways by blasting me?” she asked, shifting her weight to her other hip. She let go of him to put her hair in a loose ponytail, fixing it from when his blast messed it all up. ”Can you set your hands on fire?”

“Not for any longer than a few seconds. You literally just saw me do it, did you lie about being the best support?”

“No!”

“Good, now stop beating around the bush and just tell me what you’re thinking!”

She had wanted to save her ideas for a big reveal. She would get him all upset and storm off and then she would drop her insight on him and he’d come crawling back apologizing and begging for her help.

“You’re not much for dramatic timing, are you?”

“I’m into winning. And I don’t know you too well and don’t plan to, but you said you wanted to win too.”

“I said I was going to be the best.”

“Who cares! Let’s win! Tell me how to win!”

She leaned into him and put her hand on his chest, surprised at just how much resistance there was as she pushed against him and slid her hand around. With enough sweat on her palm, she pulled off and put it in his face.

“You’re a living, breathing factory of highly explosive substance,” she said. “I don’t know the limits, but you seem to have no problem consistently producing this stuff.”

Bakuda rubbed her middle finger and thumb together, the oily fluid coating each. She snapped, a small spark coming from her hand. He had such a good quirk, even compared to hers.

“If you can only exert it from your hands then that’s a damn shame,” she said. She put both her hands back on his chest and rubbed up and down his body. “Because you have one hell of a resource almost completely going to waste. Do you bottle this stuff?”

He showed her more contempt in one look than she had ever seen in her entire life.

“You’re some special kind of sick.”

She snorted.

“I’m serious. You have a great quirk and you’re wasting it. Doesn’t that piss you off?”

“Of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sell you my sweat for you to guzzle it down, you damn ink-headed weirdo.”

“Blegh! No!. Grenades, moron. Store it, pull the pin, toss it. Gives you some long range utility instead of having to get up close and personal.”

“My quirk is best when I can see the fear in my victim’s eyes before I kill them.”

“And we’ll make sure that stays the best use,” she said. “But not the only use.”

Bakuda noticed her use of “we” and was surprised when she didn’t feel the need to correct it in her ticking head. 

But he hesitated and worry stabbed her thoughts before she could dismiss it. He was probably just thinking everything over, but she hoped that hesitation was about her ideas rather than about her. She wasn’t an idiot though, her ideas were sound. They made sense and would be improvements for him. The issue was her, it was always her.

She wouldn’t call it a flaw, she couldn’t. But her brilliance and eccentricism was an issue for others to handle. It was why she was no longer in the hero course and having to start from scratch as a support. They wanted her to dial herself back and she tried and found success doing so. She excelled, but she could be better by being herself and couldn’t live with herself by not being her best. She was her best when she was herself and when she was herself people thought she was the worst. 

“Fine,” he said, exactly 42 ticks of hesitation later.

42 seconds spent close enough to him that his breath hit her forehead when he said it, as if literally cooling her brain while it overheated from stupid doubts. Of course it was fine. 

Her hands were still pressed against his chest, a heat radiated off of him that she only noticed now when focusing on it. 

“Fine,” she responded, taking a step back. “I’ll sketch up some renderings of what I’m thinking tonight and show you tomorrow. 1-A right?”

“Don’t ask what you already know the answer to, ink head.”

“I’ll see you there before homeroom starts then, don’t be late.”

He picked up his shirt from the ground and started putting it back on, covering up her canvas. They were moving forward and she was going to use his physique and quirk to be the best she was capable of being. He was doing the same, using her to make himself stronger. Helping ourselves by helping each other. 

She pulled his jacket off her shoulder and used her quirk, sending heated energy through each wrinkle in the material to iron it. It was warm in her fingertips and she tossed it to him, watching him pull it on.

“When will I have the grenades?”

“When you have them, now go before someone sees us and gets the wrong idea.”

“Yeah, I’d rather die than someone think I’m helping a support loser like you,” he said, turning around and stomping off.

“Not what I meant, dumbass!”

Bakuda gave her the middle finger and she laughed. He was either truly oblivious or stubborn to the furthest extent possible. They were so very different. Sure, their quirks and names and attitudes and goals were similar, but he was a sword and she was an axe. They both cut, but they cut so differently. 

She smiled as the 35th tick from when she used her quirk sounded off in her head. Bakugo turned the corner and as soon as he was out of sight, his jacket exploded from when she touched it with her quirk. Bakuda cackled as he cursed, knowing he wouldn’t confront her after she tricked him. 

Now they were even, she thought, ears still ringing as she made her way down the blackened alley.


	3. Chapter 3

The stench of gasoline nearly overwhelmed Bakugo. The door into Class 1-A was open, but he didn’t smell it until he was inside. It didn’t take long for him to find the source, especially considering it was lounging in his seat.

“You’re late,” Bakuda said, parroting her annoying complaints from yesterday.

Was she too stupid to know how to sit properly in a chair? Her calves were up on the desk, pinning a stack of papers down. She still had the same changes to her uniform as yesterday, midriff completely exposed and legs bare. Was he going to have to actually blow her up instead of faking it like yesterday?

“Get out of my seat,” he growled, stalking over to her.

“Make me,” she said.

His pores screamed out, blood boiling to a fever pitch. He could make her, but there wouldn’t be a seat left when he was done with her. The only reason he didn’t murder her was because he knew it was exactly what she wanted him to do, for whatever stupid reason. Instead, he got behind the chair and crooked his hands under her armpits, regretting it immediately due to the sweat soaked through her uniform.

She was either too stupid to notice or set this trap intentionally, because she looked back at him with that irritable, arrogant smile. Dark circles hung under each eye, making her look more like a raccoon than a person. 

“You’re disgusting,” he said, lifting her up and tossing her out of his chair. 

The rubbernecking extras in the classroom gasped as she hit the floor but she landed on all fours, showing off that weird agility that kept catching him off guard.

“It’s called work ethic, you should try it some time,” she sneered, standing up and rolling her neck.

“And you should try a shower! Did you even sleep last night?”

“Of course not,” she said, grabbing the papers on his desk with grimy little fingers. “You want me at my best don’t you?”

She looked like she had driven to school inside the car’s exhaust pipe, dark smudges on her elbows and stomach. Was her workshop a dumpster? She stepped forward and the gas smell doubled. With both hands, he pushed her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length and he saw the people on the fringes of the classroom react.

She shoved the papers into his chest with a grin. They stared each other down before he sntached them from her grip. There had to be at least 40 or 50 papers in the stack, paper clips and thumbtacks adding some heft to it. Bakugo thumbed through and saw equal parts chicken scratch and sketches.

“Bakugo,” a voice said from behind him.

His face twisted into anger. As if one self-absorbed idiot wasn’t enough to handle this early in the morning. Bakugo turned around, hating how he had to look up in order to meet the class representative’s eyes and hating it more when he was forced to squint.

She radiated, an annoyingly bright halo above her head casting light down like the sun. Golden hair spilled down her shoulders and her feathered wings reached from shoulder blades down to the floor. She used them like stilts, tips pressing down on the tile floor so that she “stood” taller than him.

“What do you want, Glow Stick?”

Bakuda snickered and he felt a surge of…something. It was hard to place and he couldn’t care less about why it felt good for her to laugh at his remark.

“If you are going to have guests over-” the class rep started.

“Not a guest,” Bakugo and Bakuda said in unison, her voice more like a hiss while his boomed. The unimpressed angel sighed.

“She works for me,” he explained, ignoring Bakuda’s scoff.

“Fine. If you are going to have coworkers-” she tried again.

“Do you have ears under that stupid ring? I said she works for me, not with me!”

“As if I could ever work for a half-wit with bed head worse than my-”

“Hey!” the girl with more feathers than brain cells shouted. “If you’re going to have anyone visit before class begins, then you need to be courteous of your fellow classmates. Especially when those guests are wannabe villains.”

“Nice to see you again too, wannabe hero,” Bakuda said.

Even with the brightness literally pouring off of her, disgust etched every wrinkle of her expression.

“What are you doing in here?”

“None of your business,” Bakuda said.

“It’s my business when it’s interrupting my classroom.”

“Still power tripping as usual,” Bakuda sneered. “Same old Victoria.”

“I’m just making sure everyone here stays safe,” Victoria said. “Show me the papers.”

“Go die,” Bakugo said.

Instead of following his command, Victoria held a palm out.

“You may not know it, but the girl you’ve apparently hired is extremely dangerous,” she said.

“Good,” Bakugo said.

“No, not good. She nearly blew up our junior high,” Victoria said, expression so stern he couldn’t help laughing. “Let me see the papers so I know you two aren’t planning something.”

“Fine, if it means you’ll get that splintered stick out of your ass and leave us alone, here!”

He shoved the papers into her hands, Bakuda cursing as some crumpled. Satisfied, Victoria let herself fall, shoes tapping against the tile and wings neatly tucking flat against her back. She studied it over, flipping through pages illuminated by her halo. 

“Uhm, th-this isn’t allowed in school,” Victoria stammered, flustered for whatever reason. 

A few of the others decided to scurry over like the cockroaches they were, the round-faced gravity girl and redheaded clown peeking over her shoulder to see the page.

“Of course it isn’t,” Bakuda said. “It belongs with a hero agency and not wasted on some loser like him, but I’ll take what I can get for now.”

Round Face looked as red as a tomato while the clown laughed and went over to the group of guys at the edge of the room to relay information. They all chuckled, but it was Deku’s damned pitying look he gave from that corner of the room that made him want to explode.

“Go to hell, ink head,” Bakugo said, turning his attention back to the moron who caused all of this.

He expected Victoria to piss him off too but she stayed silent, her face flushed as she looked through more pages. She stopped at one in particular, pulling it out of the stack and facing it towards the two of them.

“You can’t bring things like this into school and the fact that you asked her to make this… well it’s concerning to be honest.”

He snatched the paper from her grasp and she folded her arms, the rest of the stack hugged against her body. 

“What’s the big deal?” Bakuda asked, getting close enough to him that her breath tickled his ear.

He tried elbowing her to get some freaking breathing room and she dodged it with ease, retaliating by pressing right up against his back this time. Bakugo shrugged her chin off his shoulder, but not before Bakuda ducked under his arm and took the paper. While he was figuring out just how big of an explosion he was going to hit her with, she scurried back against the wall out of his reach.

For the first time since he met her, Bakuda didn’t have that annoying smirk on her face. Instead, horror etched every inch of her expression and Bakugo felt a pang of irritation that she was reacting that way to a piece of paper rather than him.

He stepped closer to her, ready to give her something worth worrying about. Orange cracks raced through the paper and he paused. Then, just as quickly as the lines had found grooves in wrinkles and creases, the paper detonated into scraps. The tiny pieces turned to dust before they could hit the ground.

“It was a dud,” she said.

“You said you were good at this!”

“I’m the best at it, but I figured I’d hand you everything instead of just the best ones. Quantity over quality,” she said, still acting weird.

“I need quality and quantity!” he shouted.

“That doesn’t even make sense! Gosh, whatever jackass, it’s over and done with.”

“Half of these are like that one, some of them are even worse,” Victoria chimed in, already holding up another sketch.

There was a silent moment before Bakuda sprinted forward to get to it, Bakugo intercepting and grabbing the paper first. Keeping her desperate flailing at bay with one arm, he held the paper out and studied it.

It looked like she wasn’t completely talentless, the sketch drawn well enough that they could pass as professional renderings. Her memory was terrible though, even though she had literally just seen him shirtless yesterday. There were at least eight drawings of him on the page and each gave him way more muscles than he actually had, biceps and chest practically sculpted.

The poses were also wrong, the center sketch depicting him winking with a smile and a thumb hooked into the center of his “costume”, which was just a pair of shorts that barely stretched to his thighs.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. 

“I was tired, okay! It was like three in the morning and I started playing around with different ideas.” Bakuda explained, still groping out for the paper to detonate it or whatever the hell her annoying quirk did.

“Where the hell are the weapons!” he shouted, the entire room falling silent. He stepped towards her and put the paper in front of her face, pointing at a sketch of him from behind. “No blades, no spikes, no cannons, not even any armor so I can crack someone’s head open by running into them.”

Bakuda looked at him as if he was speaking gibberish even though she was the one who wasn’t holding up her end of their arrangement. 

“Bakugo…” VIctoria started from behind him.

“Shut up Ring Head, this doesn’t concern you,” he barked back at her. Bakuda sneered for a moment before looking away. “Are the rest of them failures like that?”

“At least half are far too inappropriate for-” Victoria started up again.

“Shut the hell up! I’m asking my partner, not you!”

From the corner of his eye, feathers slammed the papers down on his desk, sound not matching the force.

“It’s too early for this routine. Class starts in five,” Victoria said. “She needs to be gone by then, or else I’m flying the both of you out that window.”

He only knew she hovered away because that damn brightness wasn’t making it hard to see anymore. He didn’t care, he was laser focused on Bakuda and the work she stayed up all night working on for his sake. For her sake too, for whatever reason. 

“Are the rest failures?” he asked again.

“Of course not.” she said, regaining composure with each syllable. She looked spooked and he had to remind himself that he didn’t care. “I was trying to find the best way to maximize your sweat output and got… carried away.”

“Explain.”

“Thermals make you sweat more, but soak it up. If you went topless then you’d get easy access to all of the sweat on your chest as you fought.”

Finally she was talking sense.

“Why can’t I wear pants then?”

She hit him in the shoulder, not hard enough to matter, but enough to piss him off.

“Idiot, you can’t just say that out loud or people are going to get the wrong idea.”

“Who the hell cares? Just tell me why, dammit.”

“God you’re so stupid, fine,” she said. She grabbed his hand and flipped it over so the palm was up and he let her, eager to be done with this. “Your quirk only works through your hands right?”

“Yeah.”

Her fingers felt grimy as she traced the lines on his hand. “I’m willing to bet you can train your glands elsewhere, your hands just work best because that was the starting point and over time you toughened up there. It could take years to extend that range up your arms, let alone your legs and feet. But it’s worth exploring I think.”

She let go of his hand and he let it fall down to her side.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s good work.”

She blinked once before donning that stupid grin. 

“Of course it is.”

He walked around her to get to his chair. Class was starting soon and he had no intention of having to listen to even more of that stupid angel complain. Bakuda smacked him on the backside of his head, his hair cushioning the blow. 

“That’s for making me wait here all damn morning,” she said, walking towards the door. “My time is worth too much for you to constantly be late, I’m leaving now.”

“Hit me again and I’ll make sure I’m early for your funeral, you damn support bastard!” he shouted back. 

“Just be early after school,” she said.

“Take a damn shower, ink head!”

And that was that, their next meeting apparently decided as she left. The stench of her still lingered in his seat, wrinkling his nose while he looked at more renderings. She had done all of this in a night? It took some time to find a page that wasn’t covered with pictures of his body, but one filled with different grenade designs caught his attention.

“Wow Bakugo, barely even a week into the year and you’re already getting cozy with a second year,” the redheaded guy said. “And here I thought your garbage personality made women want to hurl. Well you know what they say, birds a feather and all that.”

“Go jump in front of traffic, asshole.”

Eraserhead walked into the classroom and the rest of the class settled down..

“Just trying to help you out, bud,” the guy continued. “Bakuda thinks she’s better than anyone else and she’s literally insane. Like a doctor proved it and everything after she tried blowing up the school.”

Bakugo tuned him out until he turned back around in his seat. Why was everyone in this class such an enormous pain in his ass? He could barely even remember their names and he only knew Victoria’s because she was a massive try hard in the examination and people couldn’t stop talking about her. She was the only one to finish above him in some of the exercises and the redhead wasn’t far behind, even though his quirk was either entirely useless or basically cheating..

The icy hot bastard. The shadowy girl in front of him. The damn pink alien. Everyone here except Deku was the cream of the crop throughout the entire country and he needed every edge he could get to ensure he stayed on top. Bakugo flipped through more of the sketches. There were so many ideas and weapons to make sure each and every schmuck in this room recognized that he was by far the best. Who cares what they thought about her, insanity would get him results.


	4. Chapter 4

Bakuda yelped, backing away from the table before the falling wrench could connect with her foot. It hit the floor instead, the sound alerting the entire room of her mistake. Four seconds of pause followed, the ticking in her head keeping track of each moment where chatter stopped and the whirring of saws died down. 

Students who were probably holding power tools for the first time were spooked from a sudden noise like the amateurs they were. Then that alarm shifted from the noise to her, as if they didn’t know where else to put it. Every move she made came with a reaction from the peons in her class. It was flattering at first, but soured quickly when people were mostly judging her for her past instead of what she was doing now. 

“Take a picture if you’re gonna stare, you degenerates!” she said. 

Some turned away, but most didn’t. Unable to bring herself any lower, she huffed and made her way to the front of the studio, footsteps falling in step with the ticking.

Thankfully, Power Loader was helping some hapless boy with a bad haircut wrangle with some gravitech. She grabbed a new wrench and some more canisters from the massive toolbox and made her way back to her station, kicking the fallen wrench further under the table for making her walk. 

“You sure you’re okay?” the girl across the table asked

“Shut up.”

“Just checking up on you,” the girl said, hands up as if Bakuda had a gun trained on her. If only. “That was the third time you’ve dropped something today.”

“And the third time you’ve made something of it, I’m fine.”

“Sure.”

There were four seats at this workstation and she was the only one who dared to sit near her. Bakuda would rather be alone, it was always easier that way and at least she wouldn’t have to listen to the blonde drone on and on.

“You’re just uncharacteristically sloppy today,” the other girl continued, unable to shut up.

Bakuda didn’t bother giving her any attention, focusing on stuffing wires down into one of the canisters. The two of them were alike in many ways. They were smart, funny, and knew exactly how to get under someone’s skin to get what they wanted. If they weren’t so alike, Bakuda would be able to tolerate her.

“I just couldn’t help but notice the dark bags under your eyes, hon,” she said, setting down what looked like “Did you get enough sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Don’t be such a massive pain in my ass.”

“I’m not like the others,” the other girl said, setting down what looked like a telescoping weapon. She put her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers, resting her head on the peak. “This is a judgment free zone, now spill.”

Lisa Wilbourn was a menace. Bakuda knew as much from their few interactions in junior high. Now she sat across from her like a hyena, smile so wide that her teeth were bared. It distracted Bakuda further than she already was, having to work with something so dangerous prying to get at her. No, she wasn’t anything dangerous, Bakuda decided, hating how she was talking up this annoying girl. She was just a pimple that needed to be popped rather than failing to ignore it. 

“If I do, will you shut up for the rest of the time in the workshop?” Bakuda asked.

“Surprised you aren’t asking me to be quiet for the whole day,” Lisa responded.

“Yes or no?”

Lisa seemed to be weighing it over and her thinking made Bakuda uneasy.

“Forget it,” Bakuda said, finally getting the mess of wires to the bottom of the canister.

“Deal, but make it worth my while.”

“I’m distracted,” Bakuda admitted.

“Obviously, but why?”

Bakuda shot her a look of disgust. Was baring that weakness not enough for her?

“Wait, let me guess!”

Lisa’s eyes flickered in excitement, quirk one hundred percent in play and not even bothering to hide it. Bakuda ignored her, trying to coil the wires at the bottom of the canister.

“You were up late, but that’s nothing new,” she said, staring Bakuda down while screwing in pieces to whatever she was making. “No, you’re a night owl anyway. Whatever’s got you bothered is something new. _Someone_ new.”

Bakuda was too smart to fall for that bait. Lisa’s quirk was common knowledge to anyone who had met her, even though there weren’t any visual cues she was using it beyond her annoying habits ramping up. Bakuda didn’t know the specifics and didn’t need to, Lisa knew stuff she had no business knowing and couldn’t shut her trap about it. 

“Definitely someone,” she continued. “You were fine yesterday. Well as fine as a shut-in like you can be. You weren’t allowed in the workshop yesterday but again, nothing new. Back today and now you’re peeved, so it must be someone here.”

Lisa looked around at their classmates even though she was obviously studying Bakuda. Pretending to check options as a “natural” pause in conversation for Bakuda to fill or react. Lying through body language. 

“You’re annoying,” Bakuda said.

Lisa laughed. 

“But am I wrong?”

Bakuda bit her tongue, barely stopping herself from shouting hell yes. She was usually wrong. They’d first met in detention in junior high. Lisa spent the whole hour bragging about using her quirk to get the answers on a test, then selling those answers to classmates. Cheating ticked Bakuda off enough that she followed up with the morons who paid her. Each and every one were too thrilled about her quirk saving them from studying that they didn’t question why they got a fifth of the questions incorrect. 

“It’s the runts isn’t it?” She asked, referring to the pair of kids in the corner of the room. The one with the admittedly cute hair pins stared and laughed at something in her palm while the other waggled four or five creepy hands out of her apron pockets. “I understand. They’re childish and obnoxious and I know you hate how they skipped grades to get here while you’re a second-year in a first-year class.”

Bakuda didn’t, but telling her that would only give her more ammo.

“It’s okay to hate kids, Bakuda. Videos of kids falling down are some of the most popular online.”

Lisa waited a few seconds. Bakuda took the brief reprieve to cross some wires at the top of the canister and fill it halfway with a mixture of black food coloring, vegetable oil, and water. 

“Maybe it’s not hate then,” Lisa said. “You’re comfortable hating people and dealing with them, it’s why you have no friends.”

Nope, not gonna bite. 

“Are you even capable of having friends? No one in here has approached you since you showed up late except one of the tykes and that showoff Mei. Someone not here. You were late…” Lisa’s train of thought went off the tracks into mumbling. 

Bakuda screwed the canister shut. She tossed it in the air, trying to judge its weight. Thirty seconds, she decided, using her quirk on it and setting it inside the blastproof fishbowl she made, sealing the top like a crockpot.

“It’s a hero,” Lisa said. 

Reacting in any way now would prove fatal. Even trying too hard  _ not _ to react would tip Lisa off. 

“You weren’t at the workshop yesterday when the heroes came for us to partner up for the semester, so you went to one of the hero classes this morning for work today,” Lisa said. “One caught your eye and promised to help you like all heroes do with a big smile and perfect hair.”

Bakuda snorted, picturing that doofus’ angry expression and spiky hair in her head.

“You have a crush.”

The canister exploded inside the bowl, scrap metal and paint flying out to ding and splatter the insides. After a minute of silence except for the incessant ticking in her head, Bakuda undid the clasps on top.

“You’re way off base,” Bakuda said.

“Who is it?”

“No one.”

“It’s someone, I met most of them yesterday, most were dreamers and goody-goodies. No, not your type,” Lisa said. She was leaning forward now, enjoying herself. “You didn’t date in junior high, all the boys were scared of you. You knew that right? No, you were too busy working and studying.”

“Screw you.”

“Bakuda, I’m trying to help you. I’m a great wingwoman, I know all about the hero course students and can get some information, like whether this guy or girl likes you back.”

“I don’t like anyone.”

“For the first time, I don’t believe that.”

Her smile was infuriating.

“Does it hurt your little head not knowing,” Bakuda said, standing up to investigate the insides of the dome. Most of it was covered in the black liquid. Too much actually, she could probably go with less liquid and still get the job done. “You don’t know for sure, so you beg to find out and when people shut you down you decide to spread rumors and lies and hope people believe you.”

Lisa put her hand over her heart.

“That hurts,” she said, still smiling.

“Why are you even in here? You should be in the hero course with a quirk like yours.”

“I prefer working in the background.”

“You should prefer working at your best. Everyone should. Your potential is beyond helping others.”

“Projecting a bit, are we?”

“I’m doing my best. Are you?”

Bakuda stood up, feet a little firmer under her than when class first started. Her chair screeched against the floor and the class looked at her. The ticking didn’t sound as loud in her head as before.

“Sometimes it’s about making sure someone else can do their best, not that you would know anything about that,” Lisa said, unable to resist getting the last word in. There was a sound of sliding metal as she flourished the telescoping baton she was working on.

“For once, you’re right,” Bakuda said with a grin, making her way to the toolbox to keep working. 


	5. Chapter 5

Bakugo hated sprinting. It wasn’t difficult, nothing was for him, but it just felt so ineffective given he could cover this same distance in half the time. It was like slapping limits on a sports car. Like declawing a lion. Like-

“Pick up the pace!” Bakuda shouted, interrupting his thoughts. “I don’t have all the time in the world.”

He reached the top of the ramp and ran harder on the way back. She was at the bottom in some shade, leaning against pipes while sucking down an iced coffee. Every lap in the sun came with having to see her slacking off.

“Shut up, or the only time you’ll be spending will be in hell,” he said, stopping to touch the ground before running back up the ramp. He sent an explosion her way for some added oomph on his ascent, looking over his shoulder to watch flames and smoke roll past her legs.

“Hey!” she yelled back. “Stop wasting sweat showing off, idiot.”

She didn’t look too bothered by it and even though seeing her stupid grin still ticked him off, he felt good. He hated sprinting but still enjoyed that internal burn in his chest and legs as he powered his way up the ramp. Everything here was metal and the steel ground was uneven with pipes and wires all over the place. They were deep into Ground Gamma to avoid any annoying teachers or students, but apparently that meant the terrain would be more intense and unruly. Nothing he couldn’t handle, just annoying.

Everything out here tended to slope up, encouraging use of pipelines and cranes to swing or fly from. Yet here he was on his feet, running back and forth for some whackjob girl he met yesterday. He made his way back down. Smoke still lingered above her but the worst of it was gone and he could get a good look at her. 

She should be the one exercising. Her body wasn’t fit, but it was far from athletic. She still wore her uniform with the alterations, shirt tied at her bellybutton and tights pushed down to her ankle. Her jacket was at her feet, on top of his jacket and shirt while he ran. Her stomach looked soft, with no abs whatsoever. As he got closer he could make out the sweat, even though she hadn’t exerted herself whatsoever. 

Her looks were deceiving though. She moved quicker than she let on and was able to react to him better than most. Not well enough to stop him if he went all out, but still, she was agile. 

“That should be good,” she said before he could start another trip.

He made his way over while she poked around in a couple of plastic bags she had brought, setting her drink down. From forearm to calf, she was lean like a cat, muscle nowhere to be found. Probably a result of sitting on her ass all day as a support instead of doing anything important.

She sprung back up, a pair of round devices with the tops lopped off in each hand. Grenades, he realized, getting a better look as she walked up.

“Hand sweat in the left, body sweat in the right,” she said, holding them out.

He didn’t see a difference in the canisters, but whatever. He reached out for the one meant for his hands.

“My left, dumbass.”

“Then be clear about it!” he snapped back, grabbing the canister out of her other hand.

“So whiny today,” she said, getting closer to him. “They only need a few drops each, I’ve already got them half filled with the rest.”

He shook his fingers to force sweat off his hand and into the grenade, struggling more with not setting off an explosion than getting it inside. Just like yesterday, she ran a finger from the top of his abs to the bottom. Bakugo watched her stick the finger into the other canister, swirling it around before pulling it out. She flicked it at his face and he dodged it.

“Quit screwing around,” he said, pushing her back.

Again with that weird balance she had, taking the movement in stride. It pissed him off, but not because she so easily shrugged him off.

“Why the hell are you a support?”

She paused, expression different from the annoying smile but not one he recognized. 

“Forget it, I don’t care,” he said. “You just move like someone who knows more than nuts and bolts or whatever the hell they teach in the lame support classes.”

“Forgive me for not playing the part,” she said, irritation clear in her words. What the hell was she upset about? She got closer to him, snatching the grenade back from him and screwing a top on it. Barely a foot away from him, she spoke.

“I started last year in the hero course. Aced the classes, finished near the top in most of the brain dead exercises. Pro Heroes were scouting me leading up to the Sports Festival. No particularly big names like Dragon or Gang Orca, but still.”

She fiddled with the top of the grenade, latching on a pin. Bakuda swiped her hands across his chest, nails scratching against skin before depositing it in the other canister and screwing it shut.

“I started getting excited. Working harder and staying up later preparing for the festival. Didn’t get to compete. A week prior, we had some inane search and rescue test with some students as villains, heroes, and hostages. I was one of the heroes. Long story short, a dozen of my classmates were sent to the infirmary after I literally dropped the ball.”

“Sounds like you weren’t so good after all.”

She hit him, fist balled around the grenade as it connected with his kidney. Bakugo grit his teeth, ready to blast away her dumb grin only to see her staring at the ground.

“I wasn’t. Not on that day. It sucked. I got expelled and had to spend the rest of the school year at home, which came with its own set of problems. Reapplied this year as a hero and was told I couldn’t but they let me come back as a support for whatever reason.”

She looked up at him, the oranges and reds in her eyes melting together as the irises slowly contracted and expanding. There was a hunger there, a passion.

“I’m taking what I can get,” she said, shoving one of the grenades into his hand.

“Again, I don’t care,” he said. He yanked to take it from her but she didn’t let go, their fingertips touching with the grenade between their palms. “That was then, this is now.”

“This is now,” she said, letting go.

She took a few steps back, still holding the grenade of his body sweat while he palmed the hand sweat bomb.

“Pull the pin and-”

He did, a click following and a ticking started.

“God! You are the worst with directions! What if that exploded immediately, you moron?!” she shouted, her walking away turning into a full on run away from him.

“Be clearer dammit! What else do I need to do?!” he yelled back

“Toss it!” she yelled, back against the pipes as far as away from him as possible.

“Then what are you screaming at me for, I know how grenades work, I’m not stupid!”

“TOSS IT!”

He did, using the anger from her stupidity to really put his shoulder into it and throw it up the ramp. It exploded in midair, not even a full second after it left his hand. His world went dark for a moment, smoke and fire barreling out of the explosion and swallowing him up. 

Bakugo had his doubts about her. She was annoying, loud, and apparently a health risk to anyone that wasn’t as strong as him. Smoke filled his nostrils and made him want to choke. She seemed intent on getting as close to him as possible even though she didn’t need to and had stunk up his chair in class just from sitting in it. He knew firsthand what it felt like to be on fire and this was close, the heat bad enough it might actually burn him. The smoke started to clear, rising up in the air and she came into view, obscured by the haze and already rolling her stupid star-shaped eyes as she walked over.

Bakuda might just be the biggest pain in his ass he had ever met.

“You are hands down the dumbest-”

“Good work,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

Finally, she shut the hell up. Good, maybe it meant she would spend less time getting onto his case and more time making stuff like this. Range had always been an issue for him, he usually needed to get close if he wanted to kill someone and this changed that.

“Listen before you act this time,” she said, tossing the other grenade over. He caught it. “Pull the pin, count to three, release. Even monkeys can manage that.”

He pulled it and searched for somewhere to throw it. Having it land next to her was beyond tempting but he chose a nook in the wall across from them where metal bars crossed with beams. He didn’t miss but it didn’t land where he wanted it, bouncing off the wall and onto the ground before exploding. It was more smoke than fire and much smaller compared to the other one. Still, not bad for something she whipped up in less than a day.

“Figured as much,” she said. Her phone was out and she was typing away while she talked. “The sweat from your hands is definitely the most volatile. Might take some time to get the sweat from the rest of your body to that level, but I think it can be done with some more testing.”

His head raced with the possibilities. Sticky bombs would help him lure prey into traps and set it all off at once. They made a lot of smoke, so maybe something to see better too would help. If he could train his other pores then it’d open things up and give him an edge over the pretenders in his class. With a support,  _ with Bakuda,  _ he’d own this damn school. Even without her, he could. But she was an asset that was too stupid to turn down. Besides, an annoying support loser like her could use the inspiration.

“What’s your number,” Bakugo asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

She looked up from her phone and blinked a few times.

“My number?”

“Yeah, don’t tell me those little explosions knocked out your hearing.”

“No, just- what for?”

“What else are phones for, damn ink head.”

He handed his phone over to her, a blank contact screen for her to fill out. She just stared at it.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You always complain about wasting time and then just stand around blinking. Did your single brain cell call it quits for the night or something?”

“No! It’s nothing, just, go to hell,” she said, finally typing in her number and handing his phone back. “There.”

Maybe she really did go brain dead. Instead of her name, she entered a picture of a squid and a bomb. He added “Bakuda” after it, not caring enough to erase the emoticons. Bakugo sent her a text of his name so she had his number and she jumped a little from her phone buzzing, pulling the phone closer to her face. 

He walked over to where his clothes were piled up with hers, tossing her jacket aside. 

“We’ll talk,” he said. “I need a costume done by the end of the week so you’ll be pretty busy.”

She composed herself, face still red though. She really needed to get out more if she was already getting a sunburn just from being outside the shade.

“A costume is child’s play, it’ll take me a day if I get the materials. Have you looked through the sketches or do you want more?”

“I looked through some, I’ll pick out a few and send them. We done?” he asked, buttoning up his shirt and throwing his jacket over his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” she said, looking down at her phone again. 

He was already walking off, looking up at the fading smoke in the sky. Beyond it he saw a platform and he used his quirk to shoot up to it, leaving her down below. The wind whipped around him, a steel landscape surrounding him from up here. This was worth it. Staying after school and putting up with her was more than worth it. With a smile, he took off.


	6. Chapter 6

Bakuda entered darkness, locking the door behind her. The room was stuffy from a lack of airflow, windows bolted shut and there weren’t any fans left on for her. She made her way to the kitchen, flipping the light switch on with her elbow. The light was harsh, putting a spotlight on the dining room table that made her blink a few times to chase away the spots.

The gauntlet she left there this morning was gone, a stack of yen in its place. Bakuda set her bags down in the chair and counted it. There was 100,000 yen, strangled tight in a rubber band. Her father had either particularly liked her work or he was going to be gone for a while. Bakuda wasn’t sure which pleased her more.

She tossed the cash back on the table and started on a pot of coffee for the long night ahead. The sink in the kitchen island was deep, the sound of flowing water echoing. 

Her body buzzed and she frantically fished for her phone in the hidden pocket she’d sewn into the skirt. It was a notification from some gacha game she’d sunk an embarrassing amount of money into this past summer. She deleted the app, frustration tempting her to destroy the entire phone with her fingertips. Instead, she made a few swipes to search for some takeout. 

She shut off the water and silence comforted her. Bakuda closed her eyes and looked up at the kitchen light, brightness scrubbing at her restless mind. She let out a heavy sigh and rolled her shoulders. 

_ This is now. _

Bakugo’s words from earlier echoed in her head. She saw spots and opened her eyes, looking around the big kitchen. Bakuda tossed her phone on the marble countertop.

“Screw it,” she said. 

It was a nice kitchen with deep counters and more cabinet space than things to fill them with. It deserved better. Her mother made promises to it that she never planned to keep, insisting on something grand and expensive to impress guests. Bakuda’s memories of those days were blurry, her father’s curses about her mother were the only real anchors Bakuda had to remember her by ever since she left. 

He rarely used the kitchen because of it, only coming in this part of the house for a beer or for what she made him. Other kids had report cards or drawings hung on the fridge. She left him weapons and armor and everything in between. He would leave her money. It was always an exchange, something for something else. Nothing given.

She’d change that today and give this neglected corner of the home something it deserved. Bakuda turned on a burner and resisted the urge to check her phone for the umpteenth time today. After putting the coffee on, she got to work.

The fridge had enough to get by, udon in the freezer and some leftover takeout boxes from yesterday. She shut the fridge and saw a man with a long knife behind her in the steel reflection.

“I told him I don’t need a babysitter,” she said, turning around with the handfuls of leftovers hugged close.

He stood taller now than this morning. Not from any change in posture or attitude, but from literal added inches to his height. There were enough changes from earlier that any stranger would think they separate people. Unfortunately, he and Bakuda were far from strangers. 

“Either help or stay out of the way,  _ Oni-chan _ ,” she said. 

She stepped forward and before their bodies collided, he vanished into nothingness. Bakuda rolled her eyes, placing the leftovers on the counter next to the sink and grabbing the biggest pot she could find. 

Lee was at the other end of the kitchen, standing straight and white knuckling the knife. His hair was down now, but Bakuda didn’t feel like picking out all of the differences. She filled the pot with water and hefted it onto the burner to boil. They weren’t siblings. Colleagues at best, considering he worked as his father’s right-most man.

There was a laundry list of things Lee took care of and she was the biggest name on it. Her father’s orders to have her looked after didn’t come from a place of love or care. It was the protection of an asset. What her father failed to realize though was that she was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Bakuda struggled with the annoyingly tight top on one of the plastic food containers, sliding it his way along the counter.

“Make yourself useful and-” There was a sudden popping sound and the container slid back towards her, lid off. “Thank you.”

She slid the other three containers down the counter and he dispatched them with ease, wedging the tip of his knife underneath the lid and popping them free. He had his uses, like any household appliance did really. Bakuda just wished Lee wasn’t so unbelievably boring. In the years they’d known each other, he hadn’t uttered a single word. While it meant he wouldn’t go tattling to her father, it also reinforced that loneliness she felt whenever she was home with no one to really indulge her brilliance. 

Lee was just part of the background in most cases, not even leaving any lights on for her when she got home. Bakuda was pretty sure he stood in some dark corner all day until she got home. It was unnerving the first month or so, having this guy with a knife just sort of hanging around but he was more like a cat than anything actually dangerous. He teleported again, standing at the dining table and investigating her bag.

“Be careful with that, will you?”

He lifted up a grenade and, instead of simply turning around, he vanished again. Lee appeared in front of her on the other side of the island while she dug pork and veggies out of the containers. 

“It’s not for you,” she said, turning around to put the noodles in the pot. Again, he materialized in front of her, the grenade still held up. “It’s for school, now get out of the way.”

He did, disappearing so she could start cooking the udon. Another trip to the fridge produced some packets of soy sauce, which would just have to do. Bakuda flipped another burner on and set a pan on it. She returned to her meat and veggie station to find everything already separated for her and in neat piles. Lee was already back at the dining table, setting the grenade back in her bag.

“The hell is this?” she asked, gesturing at the tiny piles of rice, pork, shrimp, onion, broccoli, and carrots arranged on top of one of the lids. “If you’ve known how to cook this entire time I’m going to be pissed.”

After teleporting again, he was back in front of her. His hair was shaved at the sides now and spiked up and he was shorter but still taller than she was. The eyes were always the same though, dull, gray orbs that betrayed nothing. He looked down at the tray and flicked his knife forward, raising it up to show an impaled grain of rice.

“You were never the type to show off,” she said.

There was no reaction from him, nothing that hinted at amusement or denial or anything. Just a hollow stare as he neatly put the rice back and tucked the blade away.

“Cooking is more than just cool knife tricks, Lee,” she said, picking the tray up and putting everything but the rice into the pan. 

She added some oil and then tore apart the soy sauce packets and started dumping them in and mixing it together with a few shakes of the pan and a wooden spoon. The pot was heavier than she thought it’d be, carrying it to the sink. Lee wasn’t there anymore but that wasn’t going to stop her from proving her point. 

“Cooking takes a precise and calculating mind like mine. On top of that, it requires a certain level of creativity that you frankly just don’t have.”

He appeared back in front of her on the other side of the island, her phone in his hand.

“What are you doing?!”

She leaped forward to reach over and snatch it from her, spilling the hot water and noodles all into the sink. Steam engulfed her as she struggled to get at her phone while Lee just stood there blankly staring at the screen.

“Give me my phone!”

Lee faced it towards her and she could barely make out the notification she got. Finally, she managed to grab it. A text from Bakugo.

_ Do this. Attachment: 1 Image _

Before she could open the message, Lee’s finger was in her face, pointing behind her.

“Dammit!”

The entire pan was on fire, spoon included. She tossed the phone aside and pulled on the faucet head of the sink, only able to stretch it halfway across the kitchen to fire. The water kicked on and the spray reached the pan, only to spread it around further on the stove and countertops. 

Lee teleported in front of the fire and turned off the burners. In a second, he flickered and had the pot from the sink in his hands, using it to smother the fire and cover the pan. Bakuda composed herself, tucking the wet hair from the steam behind her ears. 

“Thank you, but it’s your fault for distracting me so you can clean it up,” she said as Lee beat the smaller fires with a towel.

She opened her phone to see what Bakugo sent. It was one of the sketches from last night, #34 to be exact. Maybe he didn’t have garbage taste after all. It was one of her favorites, with plenty of skin showing. Lee was suddenly beside her, looking down at the phone with a scorched towel over his shoulder.

“It’s not what you think!” she yelled. “It’s so we can try different things with his sweat!”

He blinked once. Lee tapped her phone three times and swiped once, pulling up the page for pizza delivery.

“Fine, but you’re paying.”

He looked down at the counter, his card neatly placed on top of his wallet.

“When did you even have time to do that?!”

He didn’t budge. With an exasperated sigh she stepped aside so he could get at the sink, picking up the noodles and teleporting across the kitchen to toss them in the already open garbage bin. 

Bakuda hopped up on the counter, kicking her legs while trying to figure out what to text Bakugo back with. Lee appeared in front of her again, staring her down. She lightly kicked him in the side.

“I’ll order, I’ll order, geez, I didn’t even know you ate. I figured you just downloaded sustenance or something.”

He didn’t leave until she placed the order for pizza, shoving the phone in his face as confirmation. Lee vanished again, continuing his cleaning. Bakuda jumped down and did a little pacing, Lee teleporting out of her way while she decided on a proper response. She poured a cup of coffee, took a sip, and hit send. 

_ Good choice, see you tomorrow. _


End file.
